Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software

Description

What is the status of the Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) revolution? Has the creation of software that can be freely used, modified, and redistributed transformed industry and society, as some predicted, or is this transformation still a work in progress? Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software brings together leading analysts and researchers to address this question, examining specific aspects of F/OSS in a way that is both scientifically rigorous and highly relevant to real-life managerial and technical concerns.

The book analyzes a number of key topics: the motivation behind F/OSS -- why highly skilled software developers devote large amounts of time to the creation of "free" products and services; the objective, empirically grounded evaluation of software -- necessary to counter what one chapter author calls the "steamroller" of F/OSS hype; the software engineering processes and tools used in specific projects, including Apache, GNOME, and Mozilla; the economic and business models that reflect the changing relationships between users and firms, technical communities and firms, and between competitors; and legal, cultural, and social issues, including one contribution that suggests parallels between "open code" and "open society" and another that points to the need for understanding the movement's social causes and consequences.

Joseph Feller is Lecturer in Business Information Systems, University College Cork, Ireland.

Brian Fitzgerald holds the Frederick A. Krehbiel II Chair in Innovation in Global Business and Technology, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Ireland.

Scott A. Hissam is Senior Member of the Technical Staff, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University.

Karim R. Lakhani is a doctoral candidate in management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, strategy consultant with The Boston Consulting Group, and cofounder of the MIT Open Source Research Project.

 

Table of Contents

 Foreword by Michael Cusumano xi
 
 Acknowledgments xv
 
 Introduction
Joseph Feller, Brian Fitzgerald, Scott A. Hissam and Karim R. Lakhani xvii
 
I Motivation in Free/Open Source Software Development 1
 
1 Why Hackers Do What They Do
Understanding Motivation and Effort in Free/Open Source Software Projects
Karim R. Lakhani and Robert G. Wolf 3
 
2 Understanding Free Software Developers
Findings from the FLOSS Study
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh 23
 
3 Economic Perspectives on Open Source
Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole 47
 
II The Evaluation of Free/Open Source Software Development 79
 
4 Standing in Front of the Open Source Steamroller
Robert L. Glass 81
 
5 Has Open Source Software a Future?
Brian Fitzgerald 93
 
6 Open Source Software Development: Future or Fad?
Srdjan Rusovan, Mark Lawford and David Lorge Parnas 107
 
7 Attaining Robust Open Source Software
Peter G. Neumann 123
 
8 Open and Closed Systems are Equivalent (That Is, in an Ideal World)
Ross Anderson 127
 
9 Making Lightning Strike Twice
Charles B. Weinstock and Scott A. Hissam 143
 
III Free/Open Source Processes and Tools 161
 
10 Two Case Studies of Open Source Software Development: Apache and Mozilla
Audris Mockus, Roy T. Fielding and James D. Herbsleb 163
 
11 Software Engineering Practices in the GNOME Project
Daniel M. German 211
 
12 Incremental and Decentralized Integration in FreeBSD
Niels Jorgensen 227
 
13 Adopting Open Source Software Engineering (OSSE) Practices by Adopting OSSE Tools
Jason Robbins 245
 
IV Free/Open Source Software Economic and Business Models 265
 
14 Open Source Software Projects as "User Innovation Networks"
Eric von Hippel 267
 
15 An Analysis of Open Source Business Models
Sandeep Krishnamurthy 279
 
16 The Allocation of Software Development Resources in Open Source Production Mode
Jean-Michel Dalle and Paul A. David 297
 
17 Shared Source: The Microsoft Perspective
Jason Matusow 329
 
V Law, Community, and Society 347
 
18 Open Code and Open Societies
Lawrence Lessig 349
 
19 Legal Aspects of Free and Open Source Software
David McGowan 361
 
20 Nonprofit Foundations and Their Role in Community-Firm Software Collaboration
Siobhan O'Mahony 393
 
21 Free Science
Christopher Kelty 415
 
22 High Noon at OS Corral
Duels and Shoot-Outs in Open Source
Anna Maria Szczepanska, Magnus Bergquist and Jan Ljungberg 431
 
23 Libre Software Policies at the European Level
Phillipe Aigrain 447
 
24 The Open Source Paradigm Shift
Tim O'Reilly 461
 
 Epilogue: Open Source outside the Domain of Software
Clay Shirky  483
 
 References 489
 
 List of Contributors  513
 
 Index  525